This morning, the startup community woke up to the monster of all exits – Google has acquired Hong Kong/NYC startup Divide for an undisclosed sum.
Confirming the merger on their blog yesterday morning, Divide said that they will be joining forces with the Android team but promises their existing customers that “Divide will work as it always has.”
According to Recode, the Divide purchase is part of Google’s plan to gain more acceptance in the workplace as Android’s open source nature makes it more susceptible to malware attacks. With the help of Divide’s “container approach” in separating corporate and personal information on devices, ‘BYOD’ mobility for Android might be getting a lot more enterprise-friendly.
In the past, the NYC-headquartered startup had raised a total of US $25 million from the likes of Google Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Harmony Partners. At the time of raising their Series B from Google Ventures, Divide had secured over 200,000 downloads on both Android and iOS platforms.
We have reached out to Divide co-founder and CTO David Zhu for more details on the deal and will be updating this story as more information comes in.
In the meantime, take a stroll down memory lane with this Startup Saturday 2010 pitch (when Divide was still Enterproid):
Great job guys! Putting HK on the map! But why does FT.com merely mention in passing that the company has a HK office?